


My mother would sing

by middlemarch



Category: Frozen (Disney Movies), Frozen 2 - Fandom
Genre: Babies, Childbirth, F/M, Marriage, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Parenthood, Trauma, enchanted forest aftermath, family of origin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch
Summary: Sometimes it seemed the battle in the forest had never ended.
Relationships: Agnarr/Iduna (Disney), Elsa & Iduna (Disney)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 46





	My mother would sing

It took nearly six weeks after Elsa’s birth for Iduna to see it. She’d had a long labor, not terribly unusual for a first-time mother, though Iduna thought it might have proceeded more easily if Yelena’s sister Biret had been midwife. The first pains had come at dawn and her water had not broken until the next sunrise, when Iduna was subsisting on honey and the lyric _where the north wind meets the sea_ whispered with what breath she had left between contractions. Elsa was born squalling and shivering, her features puffy, the crown of her head molded by her slow descent; her blonde hair was invisible matted down with blood and vernix, hardly more so when she was bathed. The serving women marveled at how like swansdown her curls were and then complained as they had to break the skim of ice that formed on the basin of water they’d bathed her in. Agnarr came in before the midwives wanted him to, impatient, voice strained from calling through the door, declaring that unless the Queen forbade him, he had a right to every inch of his kingdom. His unusual bluster was gone as soon as he saw his daughter and Iduna knew he didn’t care she wasn’t a son.

The first weeks were a blur—sleep caught in snatches, Elsa crying, Elsa nursing, watching her with dark blue eyes. Iduna drank the teas they gave her and ate the soups and stews, made Agnarr sneak down to the kitchen for bread and cheese and lumps of tallow she smeared on crusts and ate with an animal hunger Agnarr blanched at. She sang to the baby and rocked her in the chair that had been Agnarr’s mother’s. She found herself murmuring to Elsa in the language of her own childhood, stopped when the baby seemed to understand and raise a fist in the air, air which suddenly was icy-cold, bitter as pine-needles. Elsa was a princess of Arendelle, might be its queen if there was not a son; she did not need anything from the Northuldra.

It was the day Elsa began to smile and coo when Iduna understood. Iduna had slept better, even four hours in a row, and Agnarr hadn’t woken once. It was a clear, bright dawn, the light falling very gently everywhere, like petals dropped from a rose. Iduna heard Elsa gurgle and threw back the covers, walking over the alcove where the baby’s cradle was. Iduna pushed her night-plait back over her shoulder, to keep Elsa from tugging at it, then looked down. She saw her own face, her own features in gold and blue, the shape of her eyes, the delicate curve of her lips, the arch of her brows. She realized there was finally someone else in Arendelle who looked like her, like her mother and aunts before her, with Agnarr’s coloring perhaps but Northuldran nonetheless. After all the years since the massacre, Iduna was no longer alone, no longer the last of her tribe. She had not known how it troubled her, not the depth and breadth of it, until Elsa had taken it from her. She smiled at her daughter; her mother smiled back.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "All Is Found."


End file.
